


we still kill the old way

by peleliu



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 16:42:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peleliu/pseuds/peleliu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, saving someone can feel a lot like killing them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> back when i posted 'an exercise in letting go' i mentioned i was working on something longer. well. (this fic is unrelated to 'an exercise' just to be clear lmao)  
> rated for future content.  
> takes a hard left after an extremely high chaos ending for corvo, and a very low chaos ending for daud.  
> this is gonna be a bumpy ride.

_We'd all heard the news. A handful of dead usurpers, a child empress rescued and returned, safe and sound. The Abbey once again short a High Overseer. Word travels fast, and faster if you've got ears all over the city._

_It wasn't a surprise. I'd seen firsthand what was coming for them. It's the rest of it that doesn't sit right. How Emily had been escorted back to the Tower by the niece of a guard captain and a quiet riverman, instead of the Royal Protector. How Corvo had not been seen since her return._

_Murky details. No sign of a body. But I had no part in it... or at least, I shouldn't have._

_The report that intercepted me today changes that. If it's to be believed, I can be sure of two things: First, that Corvo Attano has returned to the Flooded District. And second, that our escape from Dunwall just got more complicated._

\-----

   The Greaves Refinery always stank of rot. Salt water from the floods, the acrid scent of whale oil, and the overpowering smell of decay. It was enough to turn the stomach, and that was before the Weepers started gathering.

   There was a reason Daud rarely found himself roaming this far into the fringes of the Flooded District. Objectively the place was useless, good only for the dead and dying. Too dangerous even for salvage and falling apart under its own weight. A dumping ground. He'd used it as such, once, not too long ago. He remembered the look on the Royal Protector's face when his weapons had been pitched over the edge of a high platform, remembered the sound of metal striking stone far, far below.   

   He'd never thought to have reason to visit this place again. Strange that he should be proven wrong. Stranger still that his return should be under such similar circumstances.   

   Daud kept to the rooflines on his approach, flanked by whalers. None of them spoke. Daud set the pace and his men matched it, and the refinery loomed before them, massive and dark. The sun had gone, and beyond the sharp silhouette of buildings in disrepair, the Wrenhaven was an inky blackness that stretched far to the distant shore.

   The sky was dark with clouds. A storm, perhaps, would come before morning.  

   Transversals cleared the spaces between rooftops, the pale glow of whale oil an eerie blur from the ground. The stuff ran like rivers here, spilling from cracks in storage tanks, soaking into dirt and brick. One spark would turn the entire refinery into a conflagration the likes of which Dunwall had never seen. Daud hoped never to witness it.

   Scaling the walls of the refinery took moments. A gesture signalled his accompaniment to wait on a lower platform, and Daud carried on the last stretch alone.

   Two of his men stood to greet him on an exterior balcony. Daud inclined his head when one last transversal placed him on the narrow bar of the platform's railing.

   Metal creaked and held, and none of them paid it any mind.

   "I'm going to guess," Daud began as he stepped from the railing to the platform proper, "that this is not some sort of elaborate joke."

   "Not by accounts," said one of the stationed whalers, and Daud identified him as Ardan, looked beyond him through the archway that led to the refinery interior.

   "Who made the identification?" he asked, looking down, down, to where whale oil shone dimly from the floor far below.

   "Galia," Ardan supplied. Over the chill wind his voice was a rasp, and Daud's eyes narrowed a fraction but he did not turn.

   "Where is he now?" Daud asked, because the implication was clear.

   "Recovering," Ardan said simply, and there was a stiffness in his voice, in the postures of both he and the man beside him that made Daud wary.

   "Severe?" he asked, restrained, and it was the other - Rickard, by sound - who replied; "Severe enough."

   Daud felt his expression tighten and turned to step up to the balcony's edge where it fell away into the refinery interior. "So the reports were true, then," he muttered, more to himself than the men behind him. By all accounts Emily and her motley escort had been the last to see the Royal Protector, which meant he’d at least survived his madcap rescue mission. And it was no wonder the search parties dispatched from the Tower had come up with nothing; finding someone like Corvo Attano when he wanted to disappear was like searching for one white rat in the swarm.

   Why Corvo would come here was the question, one which left a whole slew of new obstacles in the way of Daud’s plan. He and his men’s departure from Dunwall was meant to be a subtle affair, accomplished quietly amid the chaos.  
  
   Someday, Daud thought, he would learn that plans were made to fall apart.

   He was watching the refinery floor for movement when Rickard stepped up on his left, a dark shape in his peripheral vision.

   "Galia was on patrol when they crossed paths," Rickard said, quiet by the same impulse that lowered Daud's tone. As if they might be heard despite the wind that snatched away their voices, despite the distance between them and the refinery floor.

   Daud could not judge him for it.

   "Ardan and I gave pursuit, and followed him here. In light of your imminent return and Galia's injury, the decision was made to watch instead of act." Rickard's mask angled in his direction, seeking response, and Daud dipped his head in a nod.

   "Better bleeding than dead," he muttered. A lift of his hand and Petro and Rapha joined them on the platform, falling in line with Ardan and Rickard. He thought to summon more, increase their number, but there was an ache in his side, a shallow wound that hurt in memory, and it lent hesitation.

   Rapha was at his left, voice tinny from behind his mask. He asked, "What are your orders?" and Daud's jaw tightened enough to set his teeth aching.

   Galia had suffered for this, but he yet lived. Corvo had left a trail of death through Dunwall in his pursuit of Emily, in his pursuit of revenge. After having accomplished his goal, after everything, if Corvo had really returned to the Flooded District it could only be through desperation. Driven by what, Daud wasn't sure. Not revenge, not after their last encounter. The memory of Corvo’s icy silence in the face of Daud’s request, of his acquiescence, was still very fresh in Daud’s mind.  
  
   Not revenge. Then, why?   

   Questions on questions. _Your timing is horrific, Royal Protector,_ he thought with some measure of venom, but his men were waiting and so he exhaled once, put his thoughts in order and made a choice.

   "Ardan, Rapha, take lead. Keep to the piping and warn me if anything moves. Wait for my signal. Rickard and Petro, with me. Watch their backs. If you have sleep darts, get them ready."

   The only reply was the snap of transversals, and then he stepped over the edge and fell into the refinery.

   The descent was perilous, and Daud's attention was devoted to keeping his feet on rickety metalwork and heavy pipes that had seen better days. His whalers moved around him, just above and just below, quick at the edges of his awareness. He did not have to tell them to be silent, and as a unit their descent was accomplished without the aid of transversals.

   Daud might not have heard it otherwise.

   His feet touched slanted grating, the platform half-fallen and hanging on only by the grace of support beams that were showing their age. There was still no sign of movement below, and he had been looking for his next touch point when the sound reached him; Wretched and pained, the sort of ragged cough he had heard so often from the mouths of Weepers. It brought him up short, made him fall still to listen. Four shadows came to a halt around him for his sudden lack of movement.

   And again he heard it. Gasping and choking, somewhere at the tower's base. It echoed through the pipework, sickly, brought images of pale flesh and bleeding eyes.

   Rickard was beside him in the span of seconds, crouched at the edge of the platform and staring down. Beyond that, none of their number moved.

   Silence stretched; the coughing resumed. Daud tried to pin it down, straining for its source, but sound echoed in this place and made it near impossible. Frustration bloomed and he stomped it down, snapped his arm up in a sharp gesture that sent Ardan and Rapha leaping from their perch. They fell the last stretch to the refinery floor and their swords were up before the sound of boots striking stone faded out of echoes.

   The two of them remained crouched, scanning slowly. Daud watched them search, watched as seconds ticked by, and something tense crawled up his spine.

   Ardan looked up, shook his head, and Daud bit back a sound of agitation and pitched himself off the platform.    

   He hit the ground in a crouch, drew his sword in a reversed grip though he knew there was no target for it. He straightened, cast about, strained for any sound. Blinked his eyes that the world bled into blue and left his men glowing beacons at his side, and still nothing. The refinery was, by all appearances, impossibly deserted.

   "Sir?" Rapha breathed, rising slowly from his crouch.

   Quiet. The place was too small, sealed too tight for an escape that fast. Daud shook his head to clear his eyes and turned slowly, searching.

   "Sir, I do not see him." Ardan this time, his back to Daud, eyes only for the space around them.

   Nothing. There was _nothing there_. From the entrance high in the tower, a chill wind rattled chains and unsettled a fine misting of dust.

   All the hairs at the back of Daud's neck stood on end. Somewhere above them, he heard a startled gasp.

   Daud was moving before Petro even fell, the build of his transversal leaving his man frozen, tipping off the platform. A snap and Daud’s world resumed, footing precarious on unfamiliar metal even as he reached out, caught the front of Petro's jacket in his fist. It nearly overbalanced them both, and in that instant he saw the flash of silver overhead, a blade reflecting light, and the blur of motion as Rickard dove to intercept.

   Metal rang, a hiss and slither of swords meeting, and Daud had time only to see Rickard stumble back before he and Petro both fell from the platform's edge.

   Rapha took the brunt of Petro's fall, going down in a heap to shield the other man from his impact even as Daud rolled through his own. His shoulder clipped the floor, spread a bone-deep ache all down his arm, nearly enough to knock the sword from his grasp. Momentum carried him upright and he stumbled, hissing through his teeth, pushing pain aside.

   He looked up in time to see Rickard repelled bodily off the platform, saved halfway through his fall by a quick transversal that saw him crashing into wooden pallets leaned against the far wall instead of landing skull-first on the refinery floor.

   Ardan was at Rickard's side in a splintering of air and Daud set his feet as Rapha moved behind him, the four of them setting up in two pairs, back-to-back. Daud did not look down to where Petro lay unmoving at his feet. Not yet.

   One of them down before they'd even begun their attack. Daud's hand flexed where he held his sword, eyes scanning the pipework above them. So much for the element of surprise.

   The rustle and snap of cloth high above drew Daud's attention. Pursuit was an option. Corvo could be making for the exit or setting up an attack, but either way, they were easy targets on the floor.

   Daud looked sidelong at Rickard, waited a beat for the man to notice and nodded his head near imperceptibly. Measured, Rickard shifted his weight and stepped forward, slow with caution and watchful of the pipework above, and moved into a crouch at Petro's side.

   Rickard reached out, took Petro's arm. Ardan glanced down.

   The pale light shining in from the entrance high above them was cut by a flash of shadow and Daud leapt straight up to the nearest platform.

   A crossbow bolt struck metal inches from his left foot, answered by the crack of a wristbow firing in return as Rapha sailed past him and splintered into nothing. Lurid green splattered across stone, its target gone with the kind of speed Daud could not attribute solely to the Outsider's favour.

   Something dark slid across his peripheral vision, far to his left, and Daud cursed under his breath, dove behind a control panel to the deafening sound of a pistol firing four times in rapid succession. He was up before the roar faded but Corvo was gone, left only the smoke from his gun to mark his former location, and Daud counted breaths as he searched the levels around him, sword held aloft beneath his raised wristbow.

   Movement at his distant right. Ardan dropped into view, landed on a pipe without a sound, and Daud's eyes tracked away.

   He nearly missed the second shadow.

   Ardan lurched even as Daud shouted his warning, spun to bring his sword up against the downward swing of Corvo's blade. The impact was enough to send Ardan sprawling back on the pipe, and Daud's shot was bad but he took it anyway, sent Corvo retreating in a scattering of light and hiss of displaced air.

   Daud put his back to the control panel and waited, resetting his crossbow without looking. Ardan struggled upright, quick and jerky, and one level higher, Rapha fell into a crouch on a crossbeam. Corvo was nowhere to be seen.

   Daud shifted his weight, laid a hand against the control panel and leaned out by inches. Ardan caught his eye, shook his head and made the leap through open air to land on the other half of the fractured catwalk not too far above. Rapha remained on high, up and to Daud's right, crouched defensive and low in his vantage point.

   Daud spared a thought to Rickard, to Petro, and then the air tore open at his back and a boot landed viciously between his shoulderblades. His chest hit the metal of the catwalk with all of Corvo's weight behind it, impact ripping the breath from his lungs, and he was stunned for an instant too long to complete his grab for Corvo's ankle as the man leapt up.

   Corvo cleared the space between the two halves of the catwalk as if unaffected by gravity, brought his sword around in a strike that staggered Ardan in his surprise before Corvo's foot even found the platform. Ardan was off-kilter, sword arm thrown high, wide open, and Daud lurched forward though he knew he would not be fast enough to intervene as Corvo's sword came down in a return swing to cut straight through the opening he had made for himself.

   Rapha's transversal was like a whipcrack, carrying all the momentum of his leap from the pipework, and when he slammed into Corvo's side Daud heard the impact. Ardan went sprawling as both whaler and Royal Protector pitched over the edge, and the fall was not kind to either man. Tanks and piping interrupted them, snatched them apart, slowed their fall only through violent impact, yet when they both hit the floor, it was only Rapha's voice that raised in an agonized shout.

   Daud fell more than jumped from the catwalk, transversed half the distance and aimed for Corvo, missed only by dint of the Protector being so damnably fast. Corvo threw himself out of the way and Daud landed so hard it jarred his teeth, but he leapt forward in pursuit, swung his sword around with every scrap of strength in his body and sent Corvo stumbling when he just managed to block.

   His mask was gone. Daud wondered why, and then discarded the thought entirely.

   Ardan hit the floor behind Corvo, sword flashing low, and Corvo twisted with the momentum of his stumble, pulled his feet off the floor and spun himself bodily into his retaliation. Ardan had to dive sideways to keep his head on his shoulders and Daud filled the space he left, rushed forward to meet Corvo as he regained his footing, driving him back with a series of rapid slashes that kept him on the defensive. Corvo blocked once, again, faltered and raised his sword as Daud's blade swung down, and then he disappeared.

   The impact of sword meeting solid wood was enough to drag a pained shout from Daud, the shock running up his already aching arm. His blade was lodged tight, biting deep into the framework of a storage crate, and he did not have the time to free it, abandoned it without a thought in a splintering of air to land by Rapha where the injured man had dragged himself to the base of a whale oil tank.

   Rapha's right leg was bent wrong, twisted aside at the knee. He offered his sword to Daud without a word, and the blade shook in his hand. Daud accepted the weapon and cast around for the rest of his men.

   Ardan stood across from him, his back to the wall, head swiveling quickly. Rickard had moved Petro to the space beneath the only staircase leading out, and from the way he crouched in guard over the unmoving whaler, Daud assumed Petro was still alive.

   Three to one, and two easy targets. Daud took a half step away from Rapha and turned the new sword over in his hands, testing its weight. He needed to end this before Corvo finished picking them off. The longer he let Corvo run the fight, the worse Daud's odds became, and the fewer options were left to him. He wanted Corvo alive, at least for now, but getting answers for his questions was not worth the lives of his men.

   Daud glanced down, flexed his fingers. Two sleep darts left. When he looked to Ardan, flashed his wrist bow, he got a shake of the head in return. _Only_ two sleep darts left. His breath left him between his teeth. Fine. This would have to go quickly, then.

   Movement flashed overhead and Daud's foot skidded across the floor, bracing him. His hand came up, his world tunneled, and in a rush of magic he stole all of the momentum from Corvo's upward leap and pulled him out of the air.

   Corvo landed hard and Daud heard him gasp, a ragged sound, a reminder. Ardan lunged in the same moment that Daud leveled his wristbow and fired, and as the bolt cut loose, Corvo's left hand flared white and the world stopped.

   Ardan stood frozen in his forward rush, mirroring Rickard, halfway out of his crouch on the other side of the room. Daud felt magic slither across his skin like cool water and lunged past his own suspended sleep dart to bring his sword down on Corvo as the man surged to his feet.

   "That won't work," he reminded, and Corvo was silent, always silent, but he was too pale in the poor light and Daud could hear how he struggled through every breath he dragged in through his mouth. The skill was the same, but the edge of desperation, the fractured control was all wrong. Corvo slashed wildly, driving Daud back with the ferocity of his onslaught, and when time dug in its heels and spun the world back into motion Ardan barely missed catching Daud's errant sleep dart in the arm.

   Rickard was a blur of a thing, quick in his recovery, diving past Daud in a surprise attack that made Corvo's eyes widen and his steps falter, and it was only through greater speed that Corvo managed to turn away Rickard's sword in time to meet Ardan's next slash. Blades rebounded and Corvo's sword arced backward, dipping behind his own back to deflect Rickard and then around overhead to parry Ardan yet again. Between the two of them Ardan and Rickard had Corvo on the defensive, but even for their skill they could not seem to land a hit.

   Daud watched, and side stepped, and skirted around the three combatants. Corvo fought like a thing possessed. Someone was going to die. His hand found a pouch at his belt and his eyes narrowed.

   Corvo dipped, lashed out, staggered Rickard with a vicious overhand strike and spun to block Ardan's follow-up, and Daud flicked the top off the grenade in his hand and counted seconds.

   Rickard caught an elbow in the side of the head and went down in a tangle of limbs. Ardan was forced to one knee beneath the sudden full force of Corvo's attention. Daud reached the count of five.

   "Corvo," he called, and the grenade rolled off his fingertips as the Royal Protector's eyes slid toward him. Metal struck stone, bounced and spun. Corvo's expression registered shock. The mark on his hand flared brilliant white.   

   The canister exploded, and their battleground was flooded with choking gas.

   Blinded, Corvo gasped, gagged and started coughing, hands flying up to claw at his throat and shield his eyes as he stumbled back. Daud closed the space between them in two strides, reversed Rapha's blade in his hand and reached out. His hand closed around Corvo’s shoulder in a grip like a vise and Corvo’s only reaction was an aimless lurch, an abortive attempt at retreat. His fit of coughing stuttered to a halt when Daud slammed the hilt of Rapha's sword into his gut.

   Corvo's sword clattered to the floor, hands clawing at the sleeves of Daud's coat, and even as the dust cleared he began to cough anew. His knees buckled and Daud went with him to the floor, on one knee as Corvo collapsed onto his side, wracked with a coughing fit that had him curling in on himself even with Daud kneeling over him.

   Gasping and choking, Corvo’s head tossed. His hand spasmed, reached out for his sword, and it was Ardan's boot that kicked the weapon away. Corvo's fingers clawed the stone floor; he looked up at Daud with a kind of wild desperation in eyes gone glassy, too bright, and Daud's jaw set. He flattened his left hand against Corvo's side, felt his entire chest rattle for every breath he drew.

   Daud's hand flexed; his wristbow discharged, buried the point of his last sleep dart into Corvo's side through his coat, and Corvo's entire body jerked with his ragged gasp. He reached for his side in something close to panic, but he didn't have the strength in his grip to dislodge Daud's hand. The drug was mercifully quick.

   Daud did not move until Corvo lay silent and still on the floor. When he was sure, he lifted his arm straight up to free the dart and rose to his feet. He loosened the spent dart as Ardan studied the man at their feet, tossed it aside to the sound of glass on stone and looked to Rickard.

   Petro was still unmoving. Rapha lay injured, and Corvo wouldn't be getting up for a few hours at least.

   Daud lifted a hand to rub at his eyes. Took a breath. Gave himself a moment to calm the adrenaline that threatened to make his hands tremble even now that the fight was over, and only then did he look up, turn to nod at Ardan, who waited in silence for permission to speak.

   "You plan to take him back," Ardan said. Not a question.   
  
   It was a struggle not to sigh.

   "Rickard, take Petro. Ardan, help Rapha. His leg needs splinting,” Daud said, steady despite his racing thoughts. He studied Corvo’s crumpled form and his hands curled into fists at his sides, an unconscious gesture. Relaxing them was more deliberate.

   Ardan hadn't moved. Daud glanced at him, one brow rising, and in his silence Ardan's hands lifted fractionally. Daud expected him to speak, make some comment, but after a moment he just turned aside and moved to assist Rapha in rising from the floor.

   Getting out of the refinery would be easy compared to the trip back to their base, but limping home was better than not returning at all. Daud muttered something caustic under his breath and crossed the room to wrestle his sword free of the crate that held it captive, and, that accomplished, returned to collect his new burden.

   Corvo looked like warm death and smelled of blood, and as Daud lifted him from the floor, he wondered if this would be worth the trouble, wondered if he wasn't just dragging Corvo out of the refinery to watch him succumb to plague and death despite Daud's efforts to bring him out alive. Time would tell if the former Royal Protector had the fight left to survive long enough for Daud to get his answers. After that...

   Daud turned, nodded to his whalers where they grouped together, and then set himself to the long climb out of the Greaves Refinery. Slung over his shoulder, Corvo was deathly silent. If Daud had any luck left to him it had yet to present itself. In two day's time he and his men would be on a boat away from Dunwall, which left him very little time to deal with the problem Corvo represented, the problem which Daud had just helped to create for himself.

   But they would adapt. That's what they did. Plans were, after all, made to fall apart.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_Taking prisoners. It's a new concept. Rounding up a few Overseers after an ill-begotten raid, running them out of the Flooded District, that's one thing. Keeping prisoners? Not usually something that happens in my line of work. And yet, this is the second time I've had the Royal Protector locked up here._

_You'd think we would have learned something after the first time._

_It turns out a sleep dart won't keep Corvo down for long. I'll remember that. Doesn't help the three men he crippled in his escape attempt, but I'll remember it._

_Two more darts and a fractured leg to put him down again. There's a reason we don't take prisoners._

_I'll have to figure out something more effective before he wakes next. We have the darts to spare, but Corvo only has one more leg._

_\---_

   The storm hit before dawn. Through the window over his desk Daud watched rain fall in thick sheets, blown sideways by the wind. Thunder roared; water poured down the window glass, obscuring the view beyond. He could not see the Empress' statue through the storm.   

   At his back a door opened, closed again almost soundlessly. Light footsteps carried his visitor across the room toward him. Thomas. Daud flexed his fingers where his hands were clasped against his back.

   "Sir," Thomas greeted, reserved as ever, and in the window glass Daud saw his Second's formal half-bow reflected. Daud did not turn, just inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment, and Thomas straightened, though his stance did not relax.

   "Attano's injuries have been treated. We've cobbled together a temporary holding cell in the lower levels, as per your orders," Thomas informed him. He sounded tired beneath his usual formal tone.

   The leather of Daud's gloves creaked quietly as he tightened his hands into fists and then relaxed them again. "Guards?" he asked, eyes narrowed faintly at his reflection.

   "Killian has taken first shift. As of my departure, Attano had yet to wake," Thomas replied, and then, more carefully, "I have passed along the order against the removal of masks until the nature of Attano's sickness can be ascertained."    

   Daud nodded, watching water pour down windowpanes. This partial quarantine was a necessary precaution, given circumstances. Daud would admit to hoping it baseless, but he would be a fool not to think of it. The idea of any of his men contracting plague when they were so near to being out of this damned city was enough to see dread crawling up his spine.

   His glove felt rough when he ran his hand over his face. Turning from the window he shifted his focus fully to Thomas, and the parcel held beneath his Second's arm finally caught his attention.

   "Corvo's effects?" he wagered, and Thomas nodded, shifting the wooden box into his hands and stepping forward to extend it in offer.

   "What we deemed salvageable," Thomas clarified, and Daud accepted the box, turned it around in his grasp to flip the lid open. He'd been in this position before, looking down at a collection of Corvo's weapons and supplies.

   Half hidden beneath bone charms and weapons, Corvo’s mask stared back with one eye and a slanted grin. He shut the lid and set the box aside on his desk. The decision of what to do with it would be made after he'd decided what to do with its owner.

   Daud looked to Thomas again, chasing the dark edge from his expression with a mask of neutrality. "The rest of it?" 

   Thomas resettled his weight, clasped his hands behind his back. "Burned," he said, voice unreadable. "We've supplied him with new clothing." A pause, and then, "We thought it best."

   Again, Daud simply nodded. He wasn’t surprised, not with the state Corvo had been in when they'd found him, his uniform, once proud, riddled with holes and gone dark with grime and old blood. Daud assumed some of it was even Corvo's.

   Leaning against the edge of his desk, he folded his arms across his chest and studied Thomas. "What of the others?" he asked, for the moment putting thoughts of Corvo aside.

   Thomas' head inclined fractionally, the lenses of his mask reflecting light. "They fare well," he said, some of the edge leaving his voice. "Petro was ultimately unharmed, if shaken. Galia is mobile again. The cut was shallow. As for the men injured earlier..." He looked away, mask angled toward the door at his left, and his frown was audible when he finished, "It was fortunate Attano was unarmed."

   An understatement, but Daud let it rest. Instead he asked, "Rapha?" and watched Thomas shift his weight.

   "He is still unable to walk under his own power," Thomas said, unlocking his arms to instead fold them over his chest.

   Daud felt his expression tighten, looked aside at the wooden box resting near his hip. Six injuries, and at least two severe. There was no question that it looked bad. He felt the weight of it in his chest. Looking sidelong at Thomas, the stiffness of his posture, his heavy silence, it was easy to tell he was not the only one.

   Lightning cast sharp shadows across the floor in two bright flashes. Daud let the silence settle, waited for the thunder. It rattled the windows in their frames.

   "You think this is a mistake," he said, no accusation in the tone, just an observation.

   Thomas' mask was all dark shadows when he turned to face Daud fully once more. "I think you have your reasons," was the reply, subdued.

   Rain beat against the window at Daud's back; he watched his Second and weighed that response, filed it away. Looked into the blank lenses of Thomas' gasmask and knew he held the other man's gaze.

   "You're right," he said at last. Thomas nodded, and looked aside.

   "They have questions," Thomas said, quiet, almost distracted. "The others."

   Daud said, "They should," and Thomas’s mask turned to him again, head tilting by degrees. Daud let the silence hang, eyes tracking to the door and thinking of the men beyond it, of injuries, of missing explanations. Of the man locked up storeys below them, of all the lives he'd taken, and the ones he hadn't.

   "I created this," Daud went on at length, and even he wasn't sure if he meant the situation or the shadow they'd dragged out of the Greaves Refinery, the half-mad eyes in absence of a skull's horrific grin. His hand tightened where he gripped his upper arm, a frown pulling at his mouth.

   "I'll deal with it," he said, in the end. Thomas was silent, did not ask, "How?" and Daud thought he must know that there was no answer for the question. Not yet.

   Wind howled through the buildings beyond his window, a low wail over the hiss and patter of rain. Daud listened to it, and wondered absently when the storm would break.

   "Get some rest," he said at length, straightening away from his desk. "You've done enough."

   Thomas hesitated, but it was brief. In the end he didn't speak, just inclined his head, took a half step back, and disappeared. Splintered darkness faded like smoke and Daud exhaled, long and slow.

   The box on his desk drew his eye, innocuous thing. He studied its closed lid and did not reach out.

   Outside, the storm raged. Daud wondered in a disconnected way if the Tower's search would carry on through the deluge, wondered what Emily would be thinking, and then pushed the thought aside.

   The night had got away from him. The sun was rising somewhere out there, even if it couldn’t been seen through the storm, and fatigue dragged. Loitering in indecision was frustrating and ultimately pointless; better to spend what time he had resting. There would be little opportunity once things were set in motion.  
  
   He left the box on his desk, made for the stairs that led to what passed for his quarters. What few items he deemed of value were already packed away in a small crate to the side of his bed, and he spared it a look before seating himself on the edge of his mattress. They were all of them packing light, nothing extra to bog them down. Lizzy’s boat wasn’t big enough for frivolities, even if it was temporary.   
  
   One crate to be hauled out come nightfall with the rest of their supplies and it would be the last any of them laid eyes on what had been their home of sorts in the Flooded District. Daud studied the rough wood of the floor beneath his boots, the high ceiling above, and felt nothing. Any fondness he might once have held for this place was lost to violence and regret, and soon it would be behind him, as much as it ever could be.     

   He didn't bother with his gear, just laid back to regard the ceiling, to try and fail to put his thoughts in order.

   Hours were ticking by, and he doubted Lizzy would take kindly to delay. When Corvo woke he would get his answers, would make a choice about what to do with the Royal Protector. Whether to let him go, turn him over to the watch, or, should Daud find himself wrong about Corvo’s desire for revenge, to kill him here. Until then, he would wait.

   Sleep did not come for a long time, and when it did, it was not kind.

\---

   The vertigo was always the same. The initial, jarring moments of disorientation, of displacement, of otherness. But worse was the familiarity, the bone-deep sense that part of him, on some level, belonged here.

   The Void never changed, and Daud never got used to it.

   He found himself standing in the jagged remnants of a roofline he half recognized, boots inches from an edge that fell away into blue nothing, on into forever. He could hear water, and didn't care to find its source.

   Anger came, another old acquaintance, rid him of the sensory confusion that always accompanied his arrival here. He turned from the platform's edge in irritation, intent on finding the one who had dragged him out of the world.

   Looming over him, close enough to touch, Jessamine Kaldwin stared down through eyes cut from stone and judgment, the white spires of her crown reaching jagged toward the sky. There were cracks in her face, and water poured out like rivers.

   Daud stumbled back, and there was nothing but air to catch him when he fell.

   He could have fallen forever, or for seconds. Lurching fear bled to nothing and then he was crashing down onto rough stone, impact snatching the air from his lungs. The sound of running water came from nearby. Right back where he’d started, then. He did not immediately move to rise.

  Maybe it was his frustration that prompted his host to cut the game short. Maybe the wait was just too boring. Either way, when that too-familiar voice spoke above him, Daud’s gloved fingers dug into rough stone.

   "Things just keep getting more complicated for you, don't they?"

   Daud’s sigh raised dust in a little cloud before his face. There was a reply burning to be given voice, but he already knew that it was useless to try and speak here, so the caustic words died on his tongue. He levered himself upright to the tune of old resignation and looked up to greet his host with an expression he could only hope conveyed every word he could not say.

   The Outsider stood before him, suspended in nothing, cast in the shadow of Jessamine's statue, the same shadow that settled a chill in Daud's bones.

   "Normally I wouldn't care much for a repeat performance," the Outsider carried on, and it was almost fond, almost amused, and not quite derisive, "but somehow, you manage to keep things interesting."

   Daud's anger was a futility, but it chased the cold away. Small mercies.

   The Outsider watched him with his head tilted like a bird, eyes all black and fathomless.

   "Do you feel you can repay a debt by protecting Corvo from himself? Or is it fear that drives you? He spared you once. Are you worried he's realized his mistake?"

   There was no kindness in the Outsider when he leaned forward by degrees to study Daud, and his scrutiny was like a physical thing. There was a time, long ago, when the attention would have brought with it a thrill akin to triumph. Now, pinned beneath that gaze and in enforced silence, Daud seethed.  
  
   A debt. Daud’s eyes flicked down, away from the Outsider’s impassive face. His hands curled into fists at his sides, a memory of blood soaking through the leather of his gloves to dry tacky on his skin. Dead eyes, and the mask he still saw in his dreams. _Debt_ was so shallow a word.  
     
   The Outsider’s empty eyes blinked slowly, reptilian, and the thing that tipped his mouth was not a smile. It was no comfort, the feeling that he knew every thought that passed through Daud’s head, every evasion and venomous reply he could not speak. 

   None of it reflected in the Outsider’s voice, in his casual observations and inquiries. Hands clasped easily behind his back, he tilted his head in that drastic way of his and mused, "You're making monsters and putting them in cages, and I don't think even you know whether you are trying to save Corvo or yourself."   

   There was a chill creeping up through the stone beneath Daud’s feet. It settled in his blood, and this time, he could not rid himself of its presence.

   "The clock is ticking, and you have a choice to make,” the Outsider said, distant in a way that Daud would never fully understand. “I wonder if it won't be the end of you both."

\---

   Daud was lurching upright before the hiss of nearby transversal fully registered as real. It took seconds too long for disequilibrium to pass, for his surroundings to sink in through the lingering haze of sleep and something that wasn't really a dream.

   A whaler stood at his right, paces away, unmoving. Daud did not turn, did not address them until he no longer had to concentrate on keeping each breath steady, until his heart stopped thudding in his chest.

   The silence was thick but nothing new. Adrenaline faded, left a low-grade throb inside his skull in its wake, and he lifted a hand to press gloved fingers against his closed eyes in an attempt to will it away.

   Quiet outside. The storm had broken while he slept, left a chill in the air that called up images from his disturbed sleep, memories he pushed aside as quickly as they surfaced. Thinking of the Void never did much for his patience.  
  
   Lowering his hand, Daud swung his feet off the edge of the bed and finally nodded to the whaler waiting patiently by the railing.

   "Master," the man greeted, inclining his head in sudden animation after his stillness. "I apologize for disturbing you, but your orders were to report immediately when Attano woke again."

   The headache settled a little deeper, but now, he was very much awake. "He's lucid?" he asked, pushing himself to his feet.

   "Yes," his whaler said, nodding, and then, "but not cooperative."  
  
   Daud made a sound that might have been a laugh. "We'll see how long that lasts,” he said, moving for the stairs. His whaler fell into step behind him, quiet sound of boots on floorboards and no further comment.

   The trip to the basement level took little time in retrospect, and Daud did not bother rehearsing what he might say when they reached their destination. He'd yet to be able to predict Corvo and he doubted any stroke of omniscience would strike in the minutes it took to descend through collapsed floors to settle in the dust outside rusted tunnel gates.

   Three other whalers turned to greet him when Daud straightened from the final drop. He cast a look over the cluttered space, always claustrophobic and made smaller now by the hastily-built holding cell that stood between a wall and one of the few remaining support beams with any structural integrity to speak of. It was slapdash, all sheet metal and scrap wood, but it was enough for a short time under the watchful eyes of a handful of master assassins. Daud was not fool enough to think this haphazard cage would be able to hold its occupant for long.

   And on to that. Daud stepped forward, inclined his head toward the whaler nearest the cell door. The man nodded and stepped aside, afforded Daud space as he approached, and it wasn't until he was arm's length from the scavenged iron gate that served as entrance to this makeshift cage that he finally laid eyes on their prisoner again.

   Corvo sat with his back against the furthest wall, set away from the slashes of lamp light that broke through the darkness of his limited cell. Stripped of his Protector's grand coat he looked smaller than his size, not huddled so much as slumped where he sat with his eyes fixed somewhere on the floor before him.

   Daud wondered which of his men had lent the plain white shirt and brown slacks Corvo wore, and then thought it an odd thing to contemplate at all.

   His boots crunched deliberately as he stepped up to the bars. Corvo did not so much as lift his head.

   "Did I wake you, bodyguard?" Daud asked, and it seemed overloud, breaking muffled quiet.

   Corvo's hands twitched where they rested in his lap, and Daud did not overlook it. It was the only reaction he received. Lucky he hadn't expected much else.

   Daud's eyes narrowed against the darkness of the cell, hands shifting to clasp against his lower back. Corvo did not move, and Daud took measure of his patience.

   "This is the second time we've ended up in this position," he said, voice lowered to something less antagonizing. "And the second time I find myself wondering why you've come here at all."

   Corvo's head lowered a fraction. His silence stretched, and Daud wondered if it was stubbornness or something else that left him so reticent. It rankled, a waste of his already limited time, and Daud's fingers curled into a loose fist at his back.

   "You'll understand my confusion," he said, and his voice carried the taught edge of his overtaxed patience. "I didn't take you for the type to make the same mistake twice."

   "You weren't supposed to be here."

   For all that he had wanted a response, actually getting one left Daud momentarily silenced. It was spoken so quietly he almost didn't hear it.

   Not supposed to be here? A frown pulled at his mouth and he studied Corvo through the bars. He'd told Corvo he and his men would be leaving, those days ago when the Protector had chosen to spare his life. His side ached in memory, but not enough to distract from his questions.

   "You thought the Flooded District would be deserted," Daud said, not quite a question, though it didn't sit quite right even as he said it. His incredulity was creeping into his voice and he didn't try to stop it. "Then why come here at all?" he asked, nothing kind to the edge in his voice. "Miss the company of weepers?"

   Corvo's laugh was unexpected, low and humorless, a painful sound without any force. "I didn't come for you," he said, his voice a rasp that seemed dragged from his throat as he finally looked up at Daud, finally met his eye. "If that's what you're afraid of."

   Anger was fast, a viper strike. Daud's expression tightened and his hand tightened around his own wrist enough to be uncomfortable. "I don't think I'm the one who's afraid," he said, and now his voice was low in something much closer to threat.

   From the back of his cell, cast in shadow, Corvo watched him like Daud was the one trapped, and there was something wrong about the way he held that stare.

   "You want me to believe you came here expecting the district to be abandoned. Nothing but rats, weepers and corpses, and I don't take you for the dead counter type," Daud went on, watched as Corvo's expression turned more guarded. "So what is it, bodyguard?" he asked, inclining his head toward the bars. "Another betrayal?"

   Corvo didn't falter, didn't twitch under Daud's scrutiny, but there was something vicious lurking in his shuttered expression and Daud pressed on, all wolfhound's teeth in whatever prey he'd found.

   "Hard to believe," he said, relaxing his hands. His fingers drummed against his wrist, out of sight. "And if you didn't come here for me, and it wasn't an accident, then it's something else."

   Corvo's hands were curled into fists in his lap, his head tilted down by degrees, watchful.

   Anger curbed, Daud narrowed his eyes, holding Corvo's gaze. "I'm not going to say I can play this game all night," he said, very calmly. "Because I don't have the time to waste. We are leaving, and soon. Just not as soon as you were expecting."

   Corvo watched him, guarded, but held his own council as Daud held up the one-sided conversation.    

   "You're an uncertainty, bodyguard," Daud said. "Unless I know why you're here, unless you explain yourself, you're a threat. To me," and he tilted his head toward the whaler in his peripheral but did not look away from Corvo's shuttered stare, "and to them." Now he straightened a fraction, weighing the silence that met his words. "I'm not willing to take the risk you represent," he said at length, and let it hang as Corvo's eyes narrowed for the briefest moment.

   Seconds passed, longer than they had any right to be. In the end Corvo didn't move, didn't show any change in expression, didn't raise his voice beyond that dry, harsh rasp, "So kill me."

   And there it was. Daud held on to neutrality with a vise grip, even as vindication burned unwanted in his mind. He’d known, if he was honest with himself, had seen it in Corvo’s eyes when they’d clashed in the refinery. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to recognize the shadow for what it was. Dragged up from the Wrenhaven Corvo had been many things. Dauntless, violent, vengeful.   
  
   Never broken.      
  
   In the darkness Corvo's mouth tilted in some approximation of a smile, vicious and alien, wrong on the face of a man Daud had thought to be so much more.

   "Or can't you?" Corvo asked, studying Daud through the bars. "We've both had our chances." He breathed a laugh that dragged into a painful cough, shoulders drawing down. "Or I'll save you the trouble," he said once he had his breath back, voice shallow. "Let me out of here and you won't have to make the choice."

   It wasn't a threat, not a promise of retaliation. Daud wished that it had come as a surprise, that he hadn’t already recognized the truth, that it wasn’t his own willful denial that had dragged this out for so long.

   "You came here to die," he said, finally allowing certainty into his voice, and when Corvo said nothing, offered no defense, anger began to pool hot in the back of Daud's mind. "You were looking for a hole to crawl into and disappear."

   He struggled for indifference and fell short, every word coming too harsh or too rushed and all wrong. His frustration twisted, and he did not know for certain why, not when Corvo regarded him in exhausted silence, or resignation, instead of defiance. But that built upon it, sparked his anger until Daud's hand found the cell door, fingers closing around one metal bar and squeezing.

   "What is it, then?" he pressed, aggression in his voice, in every line of him as he leaned forward. "Plague? Cowardice? Or did you just give up?"

   Corvo was unflinching, quiet in the face of this onslaught. None of his conviction, the determination that had made him unstoppable reflected in his eyes.

  _More, or much less?_

   "What are you running from?" Daud fairly snapped, and Corvo faltered, one moment where his guarded expression slipped and he looked at Daud with something so familiar in his eyes that chilled all of his anger, loosened his hand from the bars.

   He'd looked at Corvo the same way, once. Bleeding and asking for his life. And for all that separated them, Daud would always recognize regret.

   His jaw set, arm falling to his side. The change saw Corvo watching him with something like uncertainty, but there was no sympathy in Daud for the shift.

   At length Daud shook his head, a calm settling, numbing and strange. "No," he said, "I won't let you out, and I won't kill you. One's as good as the other."

   Confusion now, reflected in Corvo's eyes. Daud turned slightly from the bars, let his thoughts settle. "We're leaving tomorrow," he said sidelong, removed. "Sending a man to alert the watch to your location on our way won't slow us down."

   Corvo's head lifted, confusion bleeding away and taking all of his armour with it. Now his silence was struck, and his eyes read nothing but fear.

   Daud turned away, looked up, and it was the hiss of transversal that cut off Corvo's rough snarl of his name when he lunged for the cell door. By the time he hit the bars, Daud was already gone.


End file.
